


All Roads Lead Here

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), BAMF Sam Winchester, Bitter Dean Winchester, Castiel (Supernatural) Has an Eating Disorder, Dean fucks up, First Kiss, Guilty Dean Winchester, He can't seem to help it, Human Castiel in the Bunker, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 17:10:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dean wants to make up for kicking Cas out and letting Gadreel in. Sam doesn't think Dean can be trusted and it turns out he's right, butit does help he and Cas come to an awareness regarding each other.





	All Roads Lead Here

**Author's Note:**

> There is vague reference to an eating disorder in this story. Please don't read if it will affect you.

The police give them a list of shelters, and they start going through them one by one like they did the town before this and the one before that. 

Like they’ll do every town around Lebanon and every town after that where they think Cas might be. 

It's not like he had any cash, or anything, so wherever he's got to he’s walked there. Sam doubts Cas would risk himself or anyone else by accepting a ride. 

Not when there are angels out there gunning for him. 

Dean's given up suggesting they split the list to get through it quicker. Sam isn't sure he could trust Dean not to find Cas and say nothing, and he’s astounded when Dean goes all defensive on him, insisting of _course_ Sam can trust him. 

He wouldn't do that to Cas. 

Sam looks at him. He doesn't say Dean already did that to Cas. He doesn't say he thought he could trust his brother not to get him possessed. 

He doesn't have to. He stares Dean down and his brother doesn't mention it again. 

But it isn't in a shelter they find Cas. It's under a damn bridge, when something says to Sam to stop. 

He does and he gets out, ignoring Dean's questions, and scrambles down the hill to the riverside. 

Later, he doesn't know what drew him there, since the figure’s mostly hidden by shadows but even what he can see bears no resemblance to their angel. 

He's grateful all the same, because it is him and they stand there staring at each other for a moment until Sam pulls Cas into his arms. 

Cas is too thin, and shaking and he stinks but Sam can fix all of that. He will fix all of that. 

He helps Cas up the hill and gets him in the back of the car. Shoves the blankets from the trunk in with him, makes sure Cas wraps up, and then gives him a bar of chocolate from the glove box. It's not much but they’ll stop for drive thru on the way home and take it from there. 

He doesn't miss how Dean can barely look at Cas, can't speak to him, and there's a bitter part of Sam that's glad. Dean's spent too long thinking the ends justify the means and that an apology makes everything okay. 

Not this time. Not with him and, he hopes, not with Cas. 

Dean has got a ton of shit to make up for. And Sam isn't sure there's even a point to him trying. 

++

Dean gets it. He does. 

He fucked up. It doesn't matter why he did it. Doesn't matter that he was trying to save Sam, then basically had Gadreel holding Sam hostage against him or that Sam started the whole mess. 

Doesn't matter that it's Metatron’s fault the angels fell, and Cas’s for being such a naive stubborn little dick. 

It's all on him, and okay…. He's not going to try and talk himself out of it. That'll just make it all worse. 

But he's starting to wonder how long Sam’ll keep this up for. Talking at him rather than to him. Treating him like the enemy, like Dean's never sacrificed _everything_ for him and more than once. 

Yeah, he fucked up big time. He'd just like to know if there's a set date Sam's going to decide he's earned forgiveness. 

And Cas…. The way Sam's acting is like Dean might hurt Cas just by being alone in the same room with him. Sam's set up some unwritten rules there and they all boil down to one core ‘truth’: Sam doesn't trust him with Cas. 

That means Sam's the one who makes sure Cas eats the right amount and at the right time. Because he's funny around food, like sometimes he just won't want any even if it's been days and others he’ll eat until he makes himself sick. 

He's the one who takes Cas for his shots. To the dentist for a check up. To the goodwill store so he has clothes other than that torn hoodie and those filthy jeans. 

Sam is the one showing Cas how to be human, and Dean hates him for that. 

Because back when they could all see it coming, Dean had told himself that if it happened and they survived the apocalypse, he'd be the one doing all these things for Cas. 

Apparently he gave those rights up trying not to let his dumbass brother die. 

And Cas…. He feels like Cas wouldn't keep him at arm's length like Sam is, that Cas gets it, or would maybe let Dean closer than the boundary Sam's set. 

He'd have a chance with Cas if Sam wasn't there in two seconds like he's got some kind of spider sense for when Dean's trying to make it up to him. 

But Sam's human and he needs sleep and when one evening he ends up snoring next to his laptop, Dean sees his chance. 

There's something Sam hasn't shown Cas yet. Dean only has to work at Cas a little to get him to come along, and maybe he hinted Sam said it was okay because Sam's tired (if Cas thinks that's because he's basically ‘raising’ him, Dean doesn't set him straight) and ten minutes after that they're in the car and heading into town. 

++

Cas takes to pool like he's a natural. Once Dean explains the rules, Cas beats him at every game so _winning_ will never be a problem. 

The next thing Dean has to teach Cas is how to lose: when, and how badly and who with, before he starts to win again. 

That though can be a lesson for another night. Because there's a blonde at the end of the bar and she's been eyeing him up since they walked in and maybe three whiskies ago it would have seemed like a bad idea. 

It doesn't know. Dean sits next to her, and not long after that he's settling in the back seat of her car while she sticks her tongue down his throat. 

So he isn't there for when the bar empties out or for when the bikers come in or for when they ask Cas if, since he's all by himself, he’d like to play with them. 

++ 

Sam drives around Lebanon until he sees the Impala parked outside the Tavern, a shitty-feet-stick-to-the-floor drinking hole right on the outskirts. 

Why the hell would Dean bring Cas here? All he had to go on was Cas's note, that they wouldn't be late and asking him not to worry. 

_Worry?!_

Sam couldn't fathom Cas's thinking right now. Dean had turned him out, without a dime, onto the streets. They’d found him starving under a bridge and that had been a fluke because Dean hadn't bothered to even keep track of where Cas had ended up. 

And yeah, Sam had listened to Dean's excuses. To him, that's all there were. Well, if Dean wanted to be the one making all the big decisions, he should have made the right ones. 

Sam had made his but Dean always had to know better. 

And Cas…. God help him, Cas would forgive Dean anything in the end. 

But right then all Sam knows is that if Dean's let anything happen to Cas, or upset him in any way, Sam will take it out on Dean’s hide. 

++

Dean isn't even in the fucking bar. 

Cas is, though, and it takes Sam a minute to take in what he's seeing. 

The men pinning him to the pool table look like bikers. Sam sees leather and tats and at least two are packing. 

The biggest one, though, such a paunch on him that Sam doesn't see how he could ride a bike, is trying to tug down Cas's jeans and he's promising Cas every sick thing he's going to do then. 

Sam's close enough to grab a pool cue before they register his presence. He breaks it over the big guy's back, and then strikes out with what's left, breaking the jaw of one of the bikers helping hold Cas down. 

Two more square up to him and Sam knows he has to take them down fast. 

But then he hears a grunt of pain from behind him. He risks a quick glance and sees the big guy go down like a sack of lard, hands cupping his jewels. 

Cas is getting up. He's bleeding and his clothes are ripped but he doesn't look all that different from the first time Sam really saw him kick ass. 

The two bikers near him are about to take a beating and they don't even know it. 

Sam returns his attention to his own two, and grins. 

++

They leave the beat up VW for Dean, wherever he's got to ( the GPS on his phone shows he's practically on top of them and Cas remembers Dean talking to a blonde woman so Sam can guess) and take the Impala back. 

Sam doesn't say much on the way back. He can't; because he's starting to realise that his desperate need to find Cas and bring him home, when he was missing, and then again tonight, is about more than protecting his best friend. 

What he feels for Cas now isn't friendship. 

But it might not also be reciprocated and one of them letting him down so badly is enough. 

He won't say anything about it. 

And he sticks to that, while he settles Cas on an infirmary bed and carefully feels his way over Cas's ribs (one might be cracked) and bandages his sprained wrists and dabs at the cut on his lip with a styptic pencil. 

When Cas's fingers wrap gently around his though, and he finds Cas looking up at him like he too might be realising something, Sam isn't so sure of his resolve. 

Especially when Cas asks Sam if he's spent all this time looking after him because of what he sees as a debt owed by Dean…

...Or something else. 

Sam eases Cas upright and kisses him like he's afraid just too much pressure might shatter Cas completely, but Cas responds with a ferocity that catches him off guard and raises a heat in him he hasn't felt for a long time. 

But still…. Cas deserves to be handled with care, protected, and Sam can't see himself ever treating him any other way. 

++

Dean's head is fucking killing him. About now, some of Cas's healing mojo would be good, but then he remembers that there _is_ no healing mojo anymore just as he staggers and stubs his little toe on the library table and curses a blue streak. 

Sam appears from the hallway and Dean's first question is if Sam has his car. 

Sam asks if there's anything else Dean wants to know. Dean waves him off; he just drove home in that shitty old VW, and Cas doesn't have a licence so clearly Sam came and collected both the baby on wheels and the baby in a trench coat. Well, used to be. 

He laughs at his own joke, right until Sam snaps out a punch that sends him to the floor. 

And while Dean's down there, Sam tells him all that he missed last night. And that if this is Dean's way of making shit up to them, he'd better try a hell of a lot harder. 

Then, as he’s walking away, Sam throws another punch. 

He's responsible for Cas now, in every way, and if Dean's got a problem with that he knows where the door is. 

Dean watches him go, stunned, and wonders if maybe Sam had the right idea. 

Maybe he should go before he fucks up anything else.


End file.
